


What Lies Beneath

by VentasServitas



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, Cthulhu Mythos - Fandom, Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26235613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentasServitas/pseuds/VentasServitas
Summary: For the first time in generations, the stars are right. The Baudelaires' peaceful life is brought to an end as their home burns to the ground and they are embroiled in a conspiracy centuries in the making.-A Series of Unfortunate Events, if the VFD was an organisation dedicated to protecting the world from eldritch horrors.
Kudos: 5





	1. The Price of Knowing

Dear Reader,

Do not read this book. Burn it and scatter the ashes to the winds, for contained within these pages are words that cannot be unread, knowledge that cannot be unlearned. Once you read, you will know, and once you know, they will come for you. I beg you, look away, before it is too late. I have sworn to record the trials and tribulations of the Baudelaire orphans, you, I hope, have not. So while this book must be written, it must not be read. Not by you, or by anyone else.

With all due respect

Lemony Snicket

_For Beatrice  
My love for you burned like a flame,  
Then you did._

Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent, resourceful children. They were charming and unfailingly polite, and most everyone who met them liked them immediately. Although they loved their parents dearly, they were independently minded, and could often be found exploring the city and surrounding area together. On this particular morning, they were alone aboard a rickety trolley, heading to the seashore. If there had been any other passengers on the trolley, they may have inquired as to why three children were traveling without their parents, to which Violet would have responded that she was fourteen, and perfectly capable of taking care of her siblings. There were, however, no other passengers on the trolley, for the sky was grey with clouds, and no-one else wanted to go to the beach.

Violet did wonder, though, why her parents never seemed to want to go to the beach: they had gone once together while Klaus was still little, and both of their parents seemed extraordinarily anxious the entire time, as if they were expecting a tsunami or something else to come from the sea. She did not dwell on this for long, however, for today was a perfect day for going to the beach. Most people prefer to visit the beach on sunny days, but the Baudelaires knew that on days like those, there would be thousands of people all over the beach, and there would be scarcely any room to lay down their blanket. Today they would have the beach to themselves.

A fire engine rushed up the road, heading in the opposite direction to the trolley, and Klaus noticed that they were almost at their destination. He pressed the button and spoke into the microphone, “Next stop please.” The trolley began to slow, and soon they were stopped by a sign reading “Briny Beach”. The three Baudelaires were getting off the trolley, with Sunny in Violet’s arms, when the trolley operator asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to go down to the Festive Fair at the pier? Festive means fun!”  
“We know what festive means.” said Klaus irritatedly, for although they were children, festive is not exactly an uncommon word, and it was more than slightly insulting for the man to assume that they wouldn’t know it. “But we definitely want to go to the beach.” And with that, the three of them disembarked and walked down to the shore.

They took some time to choose a spot to lay down their blanket, they wanted to be close to the water, but not so close that they were caught out by the rising tide. Klaus knew that the water would rise around a meter in the next hour, for he had spent some time perusing tidal charts, so he put down the blanket at a distance he knew to be safe. Violet set down Sunny on the blanket, and tied up her hair with a single blue ribbon. Violet always tied her hair up when she was thinking, because when she was younger she had found the sensation of her hair against her neck to be extremely distracting, and by this point it was such a heavily ingrained instinct that she didn’t bother to change it. Furthermore, having her hair tied up prevented it from getting caught, for Violet was an inventor, and her thinking often involved gears and levers and other moving parts.

It was to test one of her inventions that the Baudelaires had come to the beach today. Said invention was stored inside a picnic basket that Klaus had set on the sand, and Violet went over and began calibrating it for use. Meanwhile, Klaus set his book down on the blanket, for he was a voracious reader and rarely went anywhere without a book or two, and began looking for a stone to skip. The perfect skipping stone has many qualities. It should be wide and relatively flat, fairly light but not too much so, and it should not be slippery. Unfortunately there were no such stones to be found, but this was not too big of an issue. Klaus picked up a relatively large grey stone, and handed it to Sunny. Sunny was just over a year old, and had only her four front teeth. These teeth, however, were extraordinarily sharp, and made her capable of gnawing through most materials with incredible speed. Many of the tables in the Baudelaire house had small chunks from when Sunny was younger, and had not yet understood not to bite everything.

Sunny took the stone from Klaus and began to bite at it, breaking chunks off until it was reduced to an almost perfectly circular disk, around 3 inches across, and maybe half an inch thick. “That’s perfect Sunny.” said Klaus, and took the stone back from her, marking a white cross on it with a piece of chalk. “Nada” said Sunny. Now, you are forgiven if you do not understand what that means, for Sunny, like most babies her age, did not speak a language that even slightly resembles English. She was, however, an intelligent child, and had invented a sort of language of her own. While it was incomprehensible to most people, her siblings, and her parents usually knew what she was trying to say. In this case, Klaus knew that “Nada” probably meant something like “No problem”, or “You’re welcome”.

“It’s ready now,” said Violet, and at this, Klaus took the stone in his right hand, took a single step forward, and threw it into the surf. Klaus was not the most physically talented of twelve year olds, but he had spent a lot of time practicing skipping stones, and this one traveled a good distance, skipping seven times before sinking beneath the waves. As soon as it had done so, Violet pressed a button on her device, and a mechanical arm shot out of the basket, extending further and further until it was over the position of the thrown stone. There was a grabber on the end of the arm, like one of the ones from those crane games in arcades, although significantly less likely to drop what it had grabbed. With a second button press from Violet, the grabber descended, picked up the stone and returned to the surface. The arm retracted and dropped the stone onto the ground. Klaus picked it up and examined it, the white cross clearly showed that it was the one he had thrown.

“It worked!” he said triumphantly, and the Baudelaires broke out some lemonade to celebrate. If you have read this far, this is a perfect time to stop reading, bury this book as deep as you can, and go on with your life, for unlike the children, you can leave now, and pretend that the rest of the story is just as happy, and successful, and mundane. This is your last chance.  
Unfortunately for the children, the good cheer would not last long. Briny Beach was often foggy this time of year, and today was no exception. The Baudelaires could only see twenty or so metres down the beach, and so they heard the new arrival before they saw him. There was a loud cough, the sort of cough that would make people go to the doctor to have checked out, that heralded the end of the Baudelaires’ idyllic childhood. “I wonder who that is.” asked Violet, pointing at a figure approaching through the fog. She answered her own question as the figure drew closer, “It’s Mr Poe from the bank.” she said.  
“Maybe he’s just here to enjoy the beach.” said Klaus, but this looked to be unlikely, for Mr Poe was smartly dressed in a grey three piece suit, complete with a bowler hat. While Mr Poe was the immensely boring sort of person who probably wore grey suits in his free time, it would be strange, even for him, to wear such an outfit to the beach.

Now bankers were not the sort of person most people like to see, second only to lawyers and politicians in that regard. But their arrival rarely heralded doom or disaster, so Klaus thought himself rather irrational when he felt a flicker of fear run down his spine. “It only seems scary because of all the mist.” he said, mostly to reassure himself.

Mr Poe walked a few more steps forward, and stopped around a metre away from the Baudelaires. He coughed one more time, and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. Although he had coughed in her face, Violet greeted Mr Poe, for she was exceedingly polite. “How do you do?”  
“Fine, thank you.” replied Mr Poe. “I’m sad to say I have bad news for you.” and because he lacked tact of any kind, he immediately continued, “I’m afraid your parents have perished in a terrible fire that destroyed your home.”

There was total silence. The three Baudelaires were completely frozen, and because another of the qualities Mr Poe lacked was empathy, he mistook their shock for incomprehension, and clarified, “Perished means killed.”  
“We know what perished means.” said Klaus, and we can forgive him if he said it a little more forcefully than was necessary, for it is not every day that one discovers that their parents had died. The day had started out so well, and now the children’s lives had come crashing down in a single moment.

“I have been appointed the executor of your parents’ estate,” said Mr Poe, ignoring the sorrowful looks on the children’s faces, “Which means I will take care of their fortune until Violet is of age. It also means I am responsible for you until I pass you into the care of your closest living relative, who I believe is a scientist who lives nearby.” Mr Poe led the children back to his car, and drove away from the beach, leaving the invention, the blanket, and the children’s happiness behind.

Their first stop was the ruins of the once proud Baudelaire Mansion. Several of the walls had collapsed, and most of the building was unsafe to enter. The library, however, had not had another room above it, and thus had nothing threatening to fall into it. The Baudelaire children, now orphans, picked their way through what had once been the grandest room in their home. There was nothing left but ash. A single desk stood, seemingly intact, but when Klaus rested a hand on it, it crumbled, leaving a single brass cylinder on the floor. Klaus picked it up, examined it slightly, and put it in his pocket. He would not recall doing this for some time, for he had other matters on his mind. “How could this happen?” he thought, and that was a very good question.

It is an unfortunate truth that houses do burn down, and most of the time there is no foul play, only a knocked over candle, or a chair too close to the hearth. But most is not all, and the young police officer in charge of the case should not have just written it off as an accident. If he had ordered an investigation he would have discovered several important facts. First, that the Baudelaire parents were highly cautious people, and would not have left a fire unattended in a situation where it could have caused harm. That, combined with the fact that the fire clearly started in the library, a room lit by electric lights and with no fireplace, should have immediately screamed arson. Perhaps he would have deduced that an arsonist had thrown a match in through an open window, or focused sunlight through a magnifying glass. Both conclusions would have been logical. Both would have been wrong.

I have investigated the Baudelaire fire extensively, and come to the conclusion that it was not started by a match, or a magnifying glass, or even a Molotov cocktail. I have discovered that the source of the fire was in fact a book. To be precise, it was a leather-bound journal, locked into a bookcase, and it caught fire without any discernible reason. There are many things that simply do not happen: children are not dragged away by their ankles, or eaten by the monster under their beds, and books do not just catch fire. Unfortunately, every one of the above statements is false, as the Baudelaires would eventually discover.

For now though, the Baudelaires were led back to Mr Poe’s car, and he drove them to the bank, where they were forced to sit in silence while Mr Poe did paperwork. The bank was entirely decorated in a sterile white, all glass and stainless steel. There was nothing to do, and nothing to read. Klaus seriously regretted leaving his book on the beach. A woman came over to the children, “I didn’t realise this was a sad occasion.” she said, “I’m Mr Poe’s secretary, Jacquelyn, could I get you some tea?”  
“That would be lovely.” said Violet, “A little milk and no sugar please.”  
“Of course. A dear friend of mine always says that tea should be as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a double-edged sword.” replied Jacquelyn, and walked off to get it. Violet smiled for a moment, for her mother had expressed a similar sentiment, but then she remembered that her mother would never make her tea again, and struggled not to cry.

After a few hours at the bank, Mr Poe once more took the children to his car, and drove them to his home, where they would be staying for the night. The house was small, and squashed between two other houses and the inside was cluttered with appliances. This might have given it a cozy feel if not for Mrs Poe. Eleanora Poe was the editor in chief of the Daily Punctilio, a fact that she wasted no time in making clear. The Daily Punctilio was not the sort of newspaper that was read in the Baudelaire household, for as the children’s father had once said, “It could not be less truthful if it tried.” The Baudelaire children, however, were far too polite to say this, and so they suffered through Mrs Poe’s inquisition, responding woodenly to the questions she asked. Klaus would not have been surprised if everything they said made it into tomorrow’s paper, framed in the most misleading possible ways.

Eventually, her questioning became painful rather than merely annoying, and the children excused themselves and went upstairs to sleep. Here they realised two things. Firstly that they were required to sleep on the floor of the Poe boys bedroom, and secondly that they had no pyjamas, for they had burnt in the fire. Sleeping in your clothes can be extremely uncomfortable, especially if, like Klaus, you are wearing a collared shirt. For the Baudelaires, though, this was the least of all the problems they had suffered today, and they were all asleep within minutes.

All three of them slept poorly, tossing and turning in the throes of their nightmares. Although none of them remembered their dreams the next morning, Violet dreamt of fire, and their parents, while Klaus dreamt of the ocean, and something slumbering beneath.


	2. The Calm Before the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Baudelaires meet their eccentric new guardian and begin to settle into their new lives.

They left early the next morning, for Mr Poe wanted to drop off the Baudelaires at their new home and get back to the city before banking hours began. The children did not complain, they just wanted to get out of the Poe household. Even so, the children felt very strange being out so early, the trolley was not yet running, and there were no other cars on the road. None of the shops they passed were open, and the streets were empty save for the occasional dog-walker. Violet was struck by a surreal feeling, she had lived in this city for all of her fourteen years, and yet this early morning scene was alien to her: the landscape was familiar, but it didn’t feel right. It was as though she was watching from within a swimming pool, with all the colours and sounds of the outside world distorted.

With the roads empty, Mr Poe made good time, and soon the Baudelaires were leaving behind the city that had been their home. Violet turned and watched the last buildings vanish into the distance. She wondered how long it would be before they returned. It occurred to her that they would soon be further away from home (not their home anymore, she reminded herself) than they had ever been. It wasn’t that they had never travelled - Violet recalled memories of camping in the forests, and hiking through the woods - but they had never gone far from the city. It was strange, Violet though, for she knew that her parents had travelled widely in their youth, but they had mostly settled down after her birth. Violet’s knowledge of far off places came from books, and from the occasional story her parents told. Both her parents, her mother especially, had not liked talking about their travels, but even so, over 14 years, details slipped out. Violet had always wanted to know more about her parents’ lives, but had never pushed for more details, sensing that the subject made them uncomfortable. Now she would never know.

The next few hours passed mostly in silence. None of the Baudelaires had slept well the previous night, and the three children were bleary eyed and taciturn, a word which here means: silent for lack of things to say. There were many questions that Klaus would have liked to ask, but it was unlikely that either of his sisters had the answers, and Mr Poe had already proven himself to be extraordinarily unhelpful: he had failed to explain their new guardian’s relation to them, giving two contradictory answers in a single sentence. Mr Poe’s explanation had not been entirely useless however, for it had conveyed to the children that this man was not a close relation as they had initially assumed. It was only now that Klaus realised how little he knew about his own family. He knew that both of his parents were only children, and that all of their parents had died before he was born, but he could not recall the name of a single one of his parents’ cousins, and surely they must have had at least one? Both of the answers Mr Poe had given had involved a cousin of the children’s father, so why was that cousin not their new guardian? Why wasn’t it someone they had ever heard of before?

Klaus had always been curious, and as a child he had often learnt new things to make himself feel better. For instance, when, as a small child he had fallen out of a tree and sprained his ankle, he had taught himself to play Go as a distraction, before realising that he knew no-one to play with. The Baudelaires had not grown up with many friends, they had been home-schooled, and while they had played with the other children in the neighbourhood, they could not have been said to have been close with any of them. The three Baudelaires had each other, and that was enough for them. At this particular moment, Klaus would have very much liked to have been distracted, but he did not think that Mr Poe would be of any particular help. Klaus wanted to know as much as he could about their new guardian, but it had become clear very early on that the banker knew only his name, Dr Montgomery Montgomery. It was a strange name, thought Klaus, but not the strangest one he had ever heard, several of his parents’ friends’ names had been unusual indeed.

Klaus was still thinking about unusual names when he was interrupted by a smell. Now, when you are travelling, you should expect to smell different things, for example the seaside smells very different to a forest, which itself smells very different to the city. However, although those places all smell different, none of them are particularly bad smells, unless the part of the city you are travelling through is the sewage system, which I can say from experience is extremely unpleasant. The smell that reached Klaus’ nose was less like a scent, and more like a physical force. It left him reeling, and he could see from his sisters’ expressions that they felt the same.

“What is that smell?” asked Violet, coughing and desperately rolling up her window.  
“I think it’s ginger.” replied Mr Poe, also coughing, although this may have not been to do with the smell. “Badua” said Sunny, which probably meant something like “I think you need to get your nose checked.” Klaus agreed with her, for the smell of ginger did not generally make him feel like he was going to be violently sick. Fortunately, he was not sick, although he privately thought that vomit would probably be an improvement over whatever it was that was making the smell. He hoped it would pass soon.

It did not pass soon. A few minutes back, Mr Poe had turned his car onto Lousy Lane, and the smell was what gave the road its name. Lousy Lane is flanked on both sides by a large amount of apple trees. Most apples did not smell like these ones did, but then most apples were not specially grown for their immensely sour flavor. I once knew a man who called off an engagement after he was given a Lousy Lane apple by his fiancee, and, having tasted one myself, I cannot blame him. While the smell of the orchard is bad by itself, it is the presence of a horseradish factory that truly creates the worst smell I have ever had the misfortune to experience. While the smell of horseradish is not particularly bad by itself, just strong, when mixed with the smell of the apples, it is living proof that something can be much worse than the sum of its parts.

Fortunately for the Baudelaires, and the upholstery of Mr Poe’s car, they soon turned off Lousy Lane, and the smell began to dissipate, although it would probably never be removed entirely from the children’s clothes. From the turning, it was not far to Dr Montgomery’s house, and they were soon pulling up in the driveway. “Eka!” said Sunny, by which she meant “Snakes!”, for the hedges that ran along the drive had been meticulously shaped into large cobras. They were very impressive, and more than a little unnerving. 

Mr Poe and the three children got out of the car and walked up to the door of the house. The door was normal looking except for the fact that the knocker was in the shape of a coiled snake. Mr Poe glanced at the knocker, shuddered slightly, and rapped his knuckles against the door. The door swept open immediately to reveal Dr Montgomery Montgomery, the Baudelaires’ new guardian. He was fairly tall, and had skin the colour of rich coffee. He was dressed casually, and he had a wide grin on his face. His eyes flicked rapidly from each Baudelaire to the next, and finally came to rest on Violet. “You look just like your mother, did you know that?” he said, delivering his words in a sort of rapid staccato. “But you have your father’s eyes.” Violet was in fact aware of the resemblance, family friends had often commented on it, with the frequency having only increased as she got older. Normally she wouldn’t have minded the comparison, it was true after all, but today it simply reminded her that she would never see her parents again.

Dr Montgomery seemed to notice that he’d upset Violet, and he rapidly changed the subject. “Come in, come in!” he said, “I have coconut cake for all of you. Will you be staying long, Mr Poe?” With the last comment, he fixed his unblinking eyes on the banker, who looked away after a moment. “I’m afraid I must be going.” he said, “The banking day is about to begin. Remember Baudelaires, if you ever need help, you can always call on the bank!” And with that, he got into his car and drove off, quite forgetting that he had not given the Baudelaires any means of contacting him. 

“Well good riddance to him!” said Dr Montgomery, “I’ve never liked him and I don’t expect I’ll start now.” After close to a day in the banker’s company, the Baudelaires were inclined to agree. “Let’s get down to business! I expect your parents have told you all about me and my work.” There was an awkward silence. Eventually Violet spoke, “Actually,” she said hesitantly, “our parents never mentioned you.” There was another moment of silence. “Well’s that’s most peculiar.” said Dr Montgomery, “We were so close when we were younger, why look, there’s a picture of the three of us!” The picture in question was a large wooden box, the sort that things were packaged in to be shipped long distances. “Isn’t that a picture of a box?” asked Klaus tentatively, beginning to wonder if the man was slightly unhinged. “Of course it is.” said Dr Montgomery, “We’re sealed inside, it was quite a tight fit.”

Dr Montgomery smiled at the picture, as if he were reliving fond memories, and returned it to the side table. “Well if your parents haven’t told you about me, I don’t suppose you’ve heard of my work.” he said, the grin dropping from his face. “Would it have anything to do with snakes?” asked Klaus, for he had noted the many serpentine decorations both within the house and without, and came to the conclusion that either Dr Montgomery studied snakes, or he was obsessed with them (Or both, for the two were not mutually exclusive). Dr Montgomery paused for a moment, clearly surprised, then he began beaming once more. “Very good! Very good indeed. I am in fact a herpetologist.” he said.”That means someone who studies reptiles.” he added, and Klaus nodded, adding a new word to his lexicon, a word which here means: extremely extensive vocabulary.

“Come on come on! I have so much to show you!” Dr Montgomery said, and rushed down the corridor. The Baudelaires hurried after him, and came to a large, heavy metal door. The door was made of solid steel, and covered in gears and chains and mechanisms of all kinds. Violet could see at least 30 different keyholes, as well as several wheels covered in letters and numbers and strange symbols. “This is the most secure door in the entire country.” explained Dr Montgomery, “To open it you need 36 different keys, a twelve character passcode, and a biometric scan.” He leaned in conspiratorially, “Or, if you know the trick, you can just turn this doorknob here!” 

“So none of the locks do anything?” asked Violet, trying to see if there were any clues in the door’s construction hinting at the redundancy. “Well of course they do something.” said Dr Montgomery, “If you saw this door, and you didn’t know the trick, would you have tried to get in?” Violet shook her head, and realised that perhaps there was a method to the madness, and that under the exaggerated mannerisms their new guardian was probably extremely intelligent. 

“Oh and by the way, you must call me Monty. Uncle Monty in time if you feel comfortable with it.” he said, “I don’t usually bother with fancy titles unless they get me discounts.” And with that, he opened the door. To visualise the room behind the door, imagine a reptile room in a zoo. Then forget it because this reptile room was nothing like any other reptile room in existence. There were lizards and snakes all over the place, many of them running and slithering freely about. There was a tree growing in the middle of the room, and on it sat a winged lizard that looked rather like a small dragon. Monty, as we must now call him, led the children to a corner of the room.

Each of the walls in this area was covered in bookshelves that reached from the floor all the way to the ceiling. There were thousands of books of all kinds, from massive encyclopedias to smaller journals. There were battered paperbacks, and binders filled with papers. In the centre, locked into a glass display case, was a single well worn leather bound journal. “This is my library.” said Monty, “Probably not as extensive as the one you had at home, but it is the greatest store of herpetological knowledge in the known world. In addition there are also books on everything from jungle flora to mythology.”  
“Can we read them?” asked Klaus, eyeing the books with great interest.  
“Of course you can!” said Monty, “Knowledge is meant to be shared after all. You can read anything in this room, except the book in this case, because it’s my journal, and very private.” Klaus would not have dreamed of reading someone’s private journal, and so did not question this, although he did wonder why it was on display rather than somewhere more private. “What are those symbols?” asked Klaus, pointing at the glass case. Klaus had a fairly extensive knowledge of writing systems, and these symbols were not Greek, or Cyrillic, or anything he recognised. “Oh these? Just a hobby of mine, I suppose.” said Monty, “They’re warding glyphs, I came across them on my travels. They’re supposed to protect against theft. I also borrowed the symbols for the combination locks on the door, they’re pretty hard to memorise if you aren’t familiar with them. There are some books on them somewhere if you’re interested.”

“You can come back here whenever you want, but I expect you’ll want to get settled in, I’ll take you up to your rooms.” said Monty, and began leading them out of the reptile room. “I’ve bought some clothes for you, but I’m afraid they might be slightly the wrong size, we can get some more tomorrow.” And with that, the Baudelaires followed him out, and began the process of settling into their new lives.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at rewriting A Series of Unfortunate Events with a Lovecraftian theme. I confess to not having read any of Lovecraft's works in several years, so I won't be using specific characters or organisations, only the theme of eldritch beings. I will also not be following the ASOUE books exactly, I will be skipping straight to The Reptile Room, and there will be significant divergence as the story progresses. Many characters will be changed, and motivations may be completely different to in the source material.


End file.
